Withering Away
by badly-knitted
Summary: Jack is being a drama queen, convinced he's going to starve to death. Written for Challenge 38: None at beattheblackdog.


**Title:** Withering Away

 **Author:** badly-knitted

 **Characters:** Jack, Ianto.

 **Rating:** G

 **Spoilers:** Nada

 **Summary:** Jack is being a drama queen, convinced he's going to starve to death.

 **Word Count:** 1000

 **Content Notes:** None necessary.

 **Written For:** Challenge 38: None at beattheblackdog.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Torchwood, or the characters.

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Nothing! Jack pulled a disappointed face. Zero, zilch, nada; this was Ianto's usual hiding place for goodies, but there were none left. The cupboard was quite literally bare, which officially sucked.

Jack was hungry, but it was the early hours of the morning so everywhere was closed. He'd snacked his way through his own stash the night before, confident that he could raid Ianto's 'secret' store and replace the contents before his crime could be discovered, but where he'd expected to find an assortment of cookies and cakes and chocolate bars, there was instead an empty space. Not even so much as a crumb!

Torchwood's Archivist was up in Glasgow for a couple of days, sorting through an eclectic collection of artefacts Archie had inherited from his predecessor's estate. The items had been locked away in a storage unit, but the facility was due to be demolished to make way for a shopping centre, so it all had to be moved. Since Archie had limited space available, Ianto would be bringing most of the collection back to store in Torchwood Three's extensive archives, but he wouldn't be back until the day after tomorrow, and that was no help to Jack in his current situation.

Being without Ianto was bad enough, Jack thought gloomily. He missed his Ianto, not to mention Ianto's coffee. The brew from their local coffee shop, though not a patch on the blends produced by the undisputed King of Coffee, was at least drinkable; Jack knew it would keep him going until Ianto's return, but now he was being denied sugary sustenance too. He might starve and wither away to nothing before Ianto came home. It would serve his lover right if he did. Ianto would be sorry he hadn't provided enough snacks when he discovered Jack's dried up husk, lying here on the floor of the archives.

Sighing heavily, Jack slumped onto the ground beside the filing cabinets. He could almost feel himself withering already, what a way to go! Since he was already down there, he tried the rest of the filing cabinet drawers, just in case Ianto had moved his stash to a different drawer, but all they contained were neat ranks of manila folders. He put his head in his hands; he was doomed for sure.

Or maybe not, there was one last thing he could try. Pulling out his phone, Jack called Ianto.

"Jack?" Ianto's voice was blurry with sleep. "What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

"No."

"What is it?" Ianto sounded more awake now.

"I'm hungry!"

There was a groan from the other end of the phone, and the soft, fluffy sound of Ianto falling back against his pillows. "D'you know what time it is?"

"Four fifteen," Jack answered confidently.

"Exactly. It's four fifteen in the bloody morning and you're phoning me to complain that you're hungry? What do you expect me to do about it? I'm all the way up in Scotland, in case you've forgotten!"

"I ran out of snacks and now I'm withering away from starvation and it's all your fault!" Jack replied grumpily. "Just thought you should know."

Jack's announcement was met by a snort of amusement; definitely not the response he was hoping for. "The Cafés and shops will be open come morning, Jack. You're hardly going to starve in the next three hours."

If pouts could be heard, then Jack's would have been clearly audible. "But I'm hungry now!"

"Tough! Anyway, what do you mean you ran out of snacks? I made sure you had plenty of food to tide you over while I was away."

"Last night was busy, I had to eat all the snacks in my drawer to keep my strength up. Then yesterday was just as busy and there was no time to re-stock, but I thought it would be alright because I knew you kept a secret stash in one of your filing cabinet drawers. Only when I came down to get something, it was all gone."

"That wasn't my secret stash, Jack. I used that drawer once to store the food I'd bought for Mica's birthday party a couple of months ago. I didn't want the team helping themselves from it."

"Oh."

"I do have a secret stash of course, but you'll never find it and I'm not telling you where it is. A man has to have a few secrets."

"But I'm hungry!"

"This may be a silly question, but did you happen to check the kitchen cupbords before deciding to raid my filing cabinet?"

"Um, no. Why?"

"Then why don't you do that and let me get some sleep? Goodnight, Jack." Without waiting for a reply, Ianto hung up.

"Ianto?"

No answer.

"Dammit, I can't believe you hung up on me!" Jack glared down the phone at Ianto. Even though Ianto couldn't see him, it made Jack feel better. Not by much, but still…

Giving up on withering away to nothing for the moment, Jack wearily hauled himself back to his feet and slouched back up the stairs to the main Hub, making a beeline for the kitchen. All that was in the fridge was butter, one out-of-date yoghurt, and half a four-pint container of milk. Jack shut the door and went to look in the cupboards.

The one under the sink held cleaning supplies, and the one next to it contained a few saucepans and frying pans. The cupboards above the worktop were where the mugs and plates lived, along with teabags, sugar, and a jar of honey.

Opening the end cupboard, Jack just stood and stared at the stacks of cookies, and cakes, and chocolate… There was more food packed into that cupboard than even Jack could eat in a week! Pulling out a pack of dark chocolate HobNobs, Jack sank onto the floor, tore open the wrapper, and stuffed a cookie into his mouth, chomping on it blissfully and already feeling less insubstantial.

Withering away to nothing would have to wait for some other time.

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The End


End file.
